Archive for January, 2008

Bad reads

Nothing’s more frustrating than picking up a book that looks good, finding it’s not that good after all, perservering with it just in case it gets better - and of course it doesn’t - and then finding you’re a third of the way or halfway through a book you don’t like and are not enjoying.

I’ve just done this with three books in a row.

The first book, The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson, I actually finished, because I kept hoping it would get better. The blurb said the book’s sold a quarter of a million copies in Sweden, and I kept thinking “250,000 Swedes can’t be wrong…” Maybe it’s better in the original, I dunno, but it just didn’t ever grab me. I even guessed whodunnit very early on. Bah!

The second book was A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter. This was the first one of her books I’d picked up; maybe I should have started with the first one in the series to properly get the background on the characters.

The third book was the most disappointing: Small Changes by Marge Piercy. Disappointing because I like Marge Piercy’s work, usually. I found the start of this book promising (I enjoyed the story of Beth), but after that it just got more and more rambly and I found myself wondering what the point was.

Am now wondering what to read next. I don’t want to be disappointed again!

M’s big news

Congratulations! Celebrations this evening…

List

Rebecca Blood points to 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order.

I particularly like this one:

17. Don’t waste your breath proclaiming what’s really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.

To me this speaks of being clear what your priorities are and getting on with them. No need to justify to anyone else, except maybe yourself.

Funnily enough this also tells me why I’m always impatient with, and never care to engage in any talk/thought about the librarian stereotype. Who cares what some people think of us, or what we think of ourselves? Let’s get on with it!